The life cycle of a little alligator. Amid all kinds of objects, a drawing book lies open, and the drawing on view is a mosaic of reptilian figures in three contrasting shades. Evidently one of them has tired of laying flat and rigid amongst his fellows, so he puts one plastic-looking leg over the edge of the book, wrenches himself free and launches out into real life. He climbs up the back of a book on zoology and works his way up the slippery slope of a set square to the highest point of his existence. Then after a quick snort, tired but fulfilled, he goes downhill again, via an ashtray, to the level surface, to that flat drawing paper, and meekly rejoins his erst while friends, taking up once more his function as an element of surface division.

This print was one of the first to bring Escher's work to mainstream popularity on college campuses in the early 1960's. The rolling papers seen in the print combined with the snorting alligator gave the hippies a thought that maybe Escher is cool, tuned-in and turned-on. Of course, this was not true and the rolling papers were for cigarettes, but it once again illustrates the many ways each of Escher's works can be interpreted.